Gasoline on Scadrial

[Cadmium he/him]

Hydrocarbon production is reliant on the enviroments of deposition not really timescale, we get lots of oil formed in the Jurassic at 180Ma-140Ma (or rather the source rock is that age) in the North Sea because that was when we had the right conditions in the right order not because 'oil takes 180Ma to form'.

Good point that. Here in the Gulf of Mexico we're working Paleogene plays, nominally 66-23Ma. Onshore in Texas there is quite a bit of work in the Permian Basin (298-252Ma.)  Just a difference in the "age of the rock" as you said.

 

steps 1-4 aren't that hard to imagine happening at some point in Scadrial's history, but when Harmony rearranged the geography of the landscape it would have been one hell of a job to not only preserve and move Kms of strata but position near to what would become Elendel.

 

If Sazed (SoS Spoiler)

took the time to grow bioluminescent moss in the Pits of Hathsin so it would never be dark

, that shows he put A LOT of thought into little details, so I wouldn't be surprised if he had taken the effort to specifically locate petroleum resources.Not saying that's anything close to proof of anything, just showing that Sazed is willing to exercise a lot of effort for what seems a little thing. Careful placement of fossil fuel reservoirs isn't a little thing. It may even be essential to their technological development.

 

Another possibility is Sazed "bulldozing" tons of ash that is festooned with dead ash-eating microbes creating a potential feed stock for creation of sapropel that is then buried by the reformation of the continents. If not the microbes, there were A LOT of dead humans and animals on Scadrial. What if the fossil fuels are only 300 years old...     A little creepy if the oil is people and koloss, not dinosaurs.

Also, it is of interest to me as to where geographically the oil is coming from. I assumed* it was out in the Roughs, mostly because the fashion choices and lawlessness led me to thinking of the Roughs like turn-of-the-20th Wild West USA and assumed* that the oil was being produced in the roughs and refined closer to civilization. 

*Fully recognizing the dangers of assumption. Makes an chull out of you and umption.

This had me hypothesizing about the oil production using that era's technology. 1900-1920 drilling tech wasn't pulling deep plays at high pressures like we do today. They were pulling oil that was close to the surface. The Spindletop reservoir (The first gusher in Texas, 1901) was explored and developed because the hill would routinely give off sulfurous fumes and bubbling gas seepages.  After drilling 1,300 feet, It blew 900,000 barrels into the air over a week or so before they got control on it.  Nothing close to the tech we put into exploration and drilling today.

 

Diamonds come from deep down brought up in mantle plumes, the difference is (mostly) pressure but the pressure is on a different order of magnitude. If scadrian coal seams generally formed under higher pressure than Earth's we would see a greater proportion of higher grade coal however.

I only took three courses in geology at university. I will defer to your greater expertise. 

The gasoline being biofuel seems even more likely if we're going with the Occam's Razor method.

Part of me wants to agree with that. The other part thinks Scadrians haven't developed the radio or unmanned flight, but they can produce effective biofuel? Doesn't follow.

I think I'll seek WoB regarding scadrian gasoline next opportunity I get. Not Cosmere shattering in implication, but would be interesting to find out if he and Peter have thought through this portion and I hate asking questions that don't seem very unique.

[The One Who Reads he/him]

If Sazed (SoS Spoiler)

took the time to grow bioluminescent moss in the Pits of Hathsin so it would never be dark

, that shows he put A LOT of thought into little details, so I wouldn't be surprised if he had taken the effort to specifically locate petroleum resources.Not saying that's anything close to proof of anything, just showing that Sazed is willing to exercise a lot of effort for what seems a little thing. Careful placement of fossil fuel reservoirs isn't a little thing. It may even be essential to their technological development.

 

​The problem I have with this is that moving continents around is one of the first things he did, AoL Harmony could do this easy but immediately after Ascension? (just like how TLR  started out pushing the planet out of it's orbit but could then precisely engineer species. I am leaning towards the reserves being placed after the immediate reshuffle by Sazed.

Also, it is of interest to me as to where geographically the oil is coming from. I assumed* it was out in the Roughs, mostly because the fashion choices and lawlessness led me to thinking of the Roughs like turn-of-the-20th Wild West USA and assumed* that the oil was being produced in the roughs and refined closer to civilization. 

The thing that gets me here is that Brandon even comments on mining in the Roughs, would have been a golden moment to bring up drilling for oil. Seems a good assumption though as the city isn't somewhere I can see them drilling and they haven't explored anywhere else.

This had me hypothesizing about the oil production using that era's technology. 1900-1920 drilling tech wasn't pulling deep plays at high pressures like we do today. They were pulling oil that was close to the surface. The Spindletop reservoir (The first gusher in Texas, 1901) was explored and developed because the hill would routinely give off sulfurous fumes and bubbling gas seepages.  After drilling 1,300 feet, It blew 900,000 barrels into the air over a week or so before they got control on it.  Nothing close to the tech we put into exploration and drilling today.

 

Brandon needs to show us a drilling site now, think how cool a gunfight could be there for coinshots and lurchers. Also harmony planned for the city needing wide roads to come with cars, did he leave space for pipelines, transformers, cables and other modern infastructure?

My comments in red (because it stands out not because I disagree )

[Cadmium he/him]

The problem I have with this is that moving continents around is one of the first things he did, AoL Harmony could do this easy but immediately after Ascension?

Some of your view is predicated on Sazed/Harmony's access to the powers of Preservation working exactly like Rashek or Vin's access to them. Remember that Preservation had destroyed his mind to hold Ruin's mind in the pool and his power regenned once every 1024 years until it came back. With both Preservation and Ruin free and fully present, blending to create a single new shard, Sazed/Harmony doesn't have a strong burst of power that will fade. IT's all concentrated on him unless he gives it up.

 

Plus he did a TON of stuff before the survivors came out of their bunkers.  It doesn't rule it out, but yeah, some WoB would be a good thing.

 

Brandon needs to show us a drilling site now, think how cool a gunfight could be there for coinshots and lurchers. Also harmony planned for the city needing wide roads to come with cars, did he leave space for pipelines, transformers, cables and other modern infastructure?

This. So much this. A flashback to Wax bouncing around a drilling site in a gunfight with some wanted coinshot felon would be great.  

In Alloy of Law, Brandon foreshadowed that the Set is excavating for a subway, so why wouldn't they be able to excavate for other utilities?

They've obviously run electrical infrastructure and we assume there are sewers or some form of sanitation. Putting the rest of it in is not much different than modern society finding solutions for running infrastructure in London, New York and other cities that predate modern tech.

[killersquirrel59 he/him]

There is another very easy answer in the history of the automobile. The early motorcars, the type of which are being described in the book, did not run on gasoline as we see gasoline today. The first gasoline car wasn't developed until 1886 by Karl Benz* and was mostly perceived as an oddity. Going further forward, Henry Ford's first Model Ts were constructed to run on hemp oil and Rudolf Diesel's first model ran on peanut oil. Gasoline being the main thing cars used wasn't such a prominent thing until the 1930s, mostly due to the fact it was cheaper than the other fuel sources and there was a depression.

 

In the abundant land of Elendel, there is no way they would be using petroleum for their fuel. It is rich land full of plants and it makes no sense for Harmony to have steered them towards a finite fuel source instead of a renewable one when everything else he set up was directing them towards sustainability and prosperity.

[Argent he/him]

Which doesn't necessarily explain why the book refers to it as "gasoline."

[Cadmium he/him]

In the abundant land of Elendel, there is no way they would be using petroleum for their fuel. It is rich land full of plants and it makes no sense for Harmony to have steered them towards a finite fuel source instead of a renewable one when everything else he set up was directing them towards sustainability and prosperity.

Other than the fact that gasoline provides far more horsepower than peanut oil...

[killersquirrel59 he/him]

Other than the fact that gasoline provides far more horsepower than peanut oil...

I am willing to bet the term "gasoline" was used for clarity rather than necessarily being the same definition. In a world without millions of years of multiple previous eras of evolution and extinction, the idea of fossil fuels would be totally alien to the people, very much including Sazed when he Ascended. He would have no frame of reference with which to create fossil fuels, and no need to do so. 

 

Also, while yes fossil fuels provide more horsepower than some forms of bio-fuel, bio-diesels are used today in many 18-wheeler trucks, so the difference can't be that significant.

[dendrophobe he/him]

There's a very large difference between biodiesel and other biofuels. For example, E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) is far less energy dense than gasoline, so requires more fuel to be burned to get the same power out. Fuels like this are not even close to as efficient as gasoline or diesel; their popularity is instead due to their derivation from renewable sources. Rather than burning a millennias old carbon sink (petroleum) and releasing carbon into the environment, biofuels use carbon already found in the atmosphere/environment, thereby being close to carbon-neutral in its life cycle (not use phase).

Being that the Elendel basin is such a richly fertile place, if Sazed knew what he was doing, he would have had them using a crop like switchgrass (the roots act as a carbon sink, while the top is harvested yearly) to produce ethanol, to be burned in engines designed and optimized for that fuel.

[Thunder_93]

I don't really see the problem either...

True, I think too it was said that humans were created by the shards... so this had to happen after the shattering of Adonalsium.

But who says this planets didn't exist before? Maybe even with another living form on it?

 

That's the same as you'd say gasoline shouldn't exist on our planet, as humans aren't around for Milions of years yet

[Argent he/him]

Preservation and Ruin created Scadrial, however. It's a bit of a special case.

[Cadmium he/him]

Preservation and Ruin created Scadrial, however. It's a bit of a special case.

Preservation & Ruin created HUMANS on Scadrial. I don't think they created the planet itself.  Fine distinction.

[natc]

Sazed, IIRC, talks of rocks and such as an example of balance between Ruin and Preservation, in contrast to the imbalance in humans.

It's always been ambiguous as to just how much of Scadrial is artificial.

[Cadmium he/him]

I sought Words of Brandon on this subject last night in Houston.

Link to my write up: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/53221-calamity-tour-houston-tx/
 

 

 

 

Me:  You’re in Houston, questions of Oil & Gas and energy sources will be naturally be bandied about.
BS: Naturally.
Me: Is the gasoline on Scadrial a fossil fuel or biodiesel?
BS: Oh. Hmm. Well It’s fossil fue… no. What they’re using now is mostly biodiesel, I think. It’s not something we really talked out.
Me: Ok, we had a whole thread on 17th Shard and even discussed how scientifically fossil fuels could have been put into place during the Catacendre.

BS: Well, fossil fuels are possible, and I don’t want to seem like I’m clearly giving credence to those that believe in a Young Earth, but Scadrial *is* a relatively young planet. Relatively.
Me: Young Earth doesn’t bother me, though I know I’m not the majority.

Me: Where on Scadrial is it being produced?  No mention of refineries in Elendel or the Roughs.
BS: Where on Scadrial… Well It’s… I’m going to have to RAFO that for now. It starts to touch on questions of the future as they will need new sources of energy for travel and they’ll need to look for different sources.

Me: Okay. I just didn't see any mention of oil derricks in the Roughs or fuel producing infrastructure in Elendel.

BS: We’ll just leave it at “If fossil fuels are there, they were placed intentionally.”
 

[Alfa he/him]

I sought Words of Brandon on this subject last night in Houston.

Link to my write up: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/53221-calamity-tour-houston-tx/

 

 

Well, when gasoline turns up in Mistborn, you could be essencially named "worldbuilding assistants".